She’d made a mistake with the pancakes. She’d guessed that an intern in the Denny’s marketing department had named them “The Churro Delight.”

“Delight” was clearly aspirational. “Churro” wasn’t a complete fabrication. The typical late-night Denny’s stink of disinfectant, stale cigarettes, and unwashed bodies gave way to the warm smell of cinnamon, dough, and sugar. Sense memory transported her to their honeymoon in Spain. A churro, a cup of chocolate for dipping, and an espresso every morning and then again around midnight fueled their marital romps.

5 days of wonderfully adult play.

She stuffed that memory. She couldn’t think about it.

Looking up from her untouched churro-ish pancakes, she scanned the Denny’s dining room. Yet another place she didn’t fit. She didn’t look like the working girls in the corner booth. She didn’t look like the skateboarders in the booth behind her. She didn’t look like any of the 2 AM Denny’s crowd. Far too upper-middle-class for this time of night. Far too blond. Far too put together in her yoga pants, oversized Peloton hoodie, and high tops.

Far too alone.

You’d say she was gorgeous, except for her eyes. Red. Swollen. Puffy. 20 hours of non-stop weeping and no sleeping will do that. She wiped her eyes again with a paper napkin. There was a short stack of damp napkins beside her plate.

“You left me.” She accused the pancakes. Not really talking to the pancakes, of course. 
She was talking to herself…or, really, you should know, she was talking to her husband, Brandon.

Gone these two years.

Two years ago, this very day, in fact.

“You said we’d grow old together.” No one in Denny’s noticed her quiet accusation.

No one answered, including the pancakes.

“Why? Why did this happen?”

The pancakes had no answers.

John Legend’s “All of Me” began playing softly from the kitchen. It was hard to make out with all the laughter and arguing and clatter. But it was there. Barely.

She didn’t hear it.

“All of Me” was their song. When they heard it, they danced. That was their rule. No matter where they were, well, except the car, they danced. A slow, luxurious celebration of their love. Bodies in full contact. Eye to eye. Hip to hip. Heart to heart.

He’d whisper the song’s lyrics to her as they danced. Never breaking eye contact.

They danced to “All of Me” in public, in private, at home, in restaurants, at the gym, once in Whole Foods…when they heard it, they danced. A slow dance of joy and love.

They didn’t care if it embarrassed people.

When they danced to “All of Me,” they gave themselves to each other. The universe fell away until it was just the two of them.

They celebrated finding love. They relished this beautiful thing they had. Note the past tense. Had.

730 days ago, it ended abruptly.

A drunk retired schoolteacher confused an exit ramp for an entrance ramp at 80 mph and killed her beautiful husband. Gone in a heartbeat. When she’d reached the hospital, he wasn’t beautiful. He wasn’t even recognizable…he was gone.

Here comes the part in the song where Brandon always squeezed her bottom and leered. She loved how that grin turned her knees to jelly. Her heat rose when he did that.

She’d never feel that with him again.

“I can’t do this without you.” She whispered to the pancake or Brandon or God. “I can’t.”

Now John Legend was singing about crying as her tears dripped on her “Churro Delight.” A sob escaped. She drew in a shuddering breath.

Elbows propped on the table, head in hands, she whispered, “Oh, Ponyboy.”

That was her nickname for him in bed. They’d giggled and giggled when she’d first called him her “Ponyboy.” It was one of those moments that couples who are coupling know. Ponyboy fit their position. She’d collapsed on top of him in hysterics, which killed the moment, but only that once. She’d murmured, “My Ponyboy,” in his ear many, many other times as they’d made love through the years.

She’d give anything to hear his husky, desire-choked laugh again.

She’d give anything to hear anything from him.

John Legend was unsuccessfully competing with a shouting match in the booth behind her. Something about who or who had not completed a legitimate “Front Side 180.”

Ponyboy was gone. And now for the second time, she was celebrating his death-a-versary in his favorite Denny’s surrounded by…well, surrounded by a disinterested 2 AM Denny’s crowd.

She’d believed her Brandon, her Ponyboy, when he told her he’d never leave her.

But he was gone.

He’d left her alone.

Not his fault.

Whatever. Still a widow at 32. Young and hollowed out. Beautiful, but for those haunted eyes.

Alone. There’s that word again.

She wiped her nose and pushed her untouched pancakes across the table as John Legend’s sweet tenor sang of curves and imperfections from the Denny’s kitchen boombox.

“Brandon, I can’t do this. I need you.” Too far in the background, Legend sang of angels. If she’d heard, she’d have startled. She’d have known if she’d listened. But she didn’t. Her eyes never left the Formica tabletop. It was all clatter and chatter.

She slid out of the booth and tossed a twenty on the table. She was unsteady with the weight of her grief. The waitress assumed she was just another drunk but was glad for the twenty on an 11-dollar ticket.

She pushed through the door and into the parking lot as the song’s closing piano riff ended.

She’d never heard their song playing over the conversations and her heartbreak.

She’d missed the message, again.

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